When We Could Travel (VI)

...continuing to relive our 2006 trip to New Mexico, Arizona and southwestern Colorado.  In this post, we’d returned to New Mexico and were staying in the Santa Fe area.

This is the Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe.  This is the mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe.  It was built between 1869 and 1886 on the site of an older adobe church which was built in the early 1700s.  A small chapel from the old church is still in place on one side of the cathedral.

Having been designed in the Romanesque Revival style, this structure is a dramatic contrast to the surrounding adobe building in downtown Santa Fe.  The Cathedral was officially elevated to a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, when it was officially named the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The La Fonda Hotel is the only hotel located on the Historic Santa Fe Plaza in the center of the city.  The photo shows the La Plazuela Dining Room in the hotel.  It was built in the 1920s and it is filled with foliage, colorful furnishings and it’s encircled with hand-painted windows in the southwest style.

Records indicate that La Fonda occupies the site of the town’s first inn which was established when the city was founded by Spaniards in 1607.  La Fonda’s history can be traced back 400 years.  Throughout the 1800s, La Fonda was the premier lodging option for trappers, soldiers, gold seekers, gamblers and politicians. 

The hotel changed hands several times over the years and in 1925 it was purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.  It was leased to Fred Harvey who made the inn a Harvey House.  That hotel chain was known for its high standards, fine dining and for its signature “Harvey Girls”, a staff of exceptionally well-trained waitresses.

Today this premier hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America.  You can find out more about La Fonda at https://www.lafondasantafe.com/.  To view the hotels that are listed with Historic Hotels of America, just go to https://www.historichotels.org/us/. 

While in Santa Fe, we decided that we should check out Museum Hill…a grouping of specialized museums all grouped together.

At the corner of the Old Santa Fe Trail and Camino Lejo, we were greeted by an impressive larger than life bronze sculpture.  It depicts the first wagon of a mule-drawn wagon train, struggling to make it up a hill.  This expansive scenario includes a muleskinner sitting on one mule while reaching down to help another mule that’s losing its footing.  All 6 animals are working hard to complete the climb.  A rider on horseback looks back.  Spectators include a Pueblo woman wrapped in a blanket and a young boy with his dog.  The artist who created this scene was Reynalda Rivera.  His work was dedicated in 2003.

The Santa Fe Trail was a land route opened by the Spaniards at the end of the 1700s.  During the 1800s the trail connected New Mexico with Missouri and St. Louis with its port on the Mississippi River.  The trail passed through Comanche territory and they demanded payment for safe passage.  Of course American traders viewed the Comanche as another market.  In 1846, the US Army used the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico during the Mexican-American War.  The arrival of the railroad at Santa Fe in 1880 spelled the end of the trail’s importance. 

These photos show portions of the collection of Museums on Museum Hill.  The complex includes the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.  It also features the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. 

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art opened in July of 2002.  With over 3,700 unique objects in the collection, it is the only museum in the world that is dedicated to Spanish colonial art.

Our visit was long before I started blogging and I wasn’t taking photos in the museums we visited.  We certainly enjoyed the experience but you’ll have to visit these museums yourself to see what they offer.  Some glimpses of the collections can be found on line at the various websites.  They are as follows:

https://www.spanishcolonial.org/, http://www.internationalfolkart.org/.  http://www.indianartsandculture.org/, https://wheelwright.org/, and https://santafebotanicalgarden.org/.

This 24 foot tall bronze sculpture is also found on Museum Hill.  This impressive creation was sculpted by San Carlos Apache artist Dan Goseyun and its entitled Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer.  The figure itself is over 10 feet tall.  He looks like he’s in perpetual motion…

The Apache Mountain Spirits are very important to the tribe’s culture.  These spirits are the agents of the Supreme Being and they provide protection from disease and enemies.  Spirit Dancers are crowned with wooden-slat headdresses and they’re armed with wooden swords and a bullroarer.  They dance at night to the sounds of drums, singing and the whirling bullroarers.

The San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation was established in 1872 as a reservation for the Chiricahua Apaches as well as the surrounding Yavapai and other Apache bands that were forcibly removed from their homelands.  Living conditions were horrendous at the time. The reservation includes 1.8 million acres of desert, alpine meadows and Ponderosa Pine forest in southeastern Arizona.  Today the San Carlos Apaches have their own Chamber of Commerce, two casinos, a language preservation program, a culture center and a tribal college.  Over 10,000 Native Americans live on the reservation today…

This was The Bobcat Bite, a restaurant that was located on the outskirts of Santa Fe, off the Old Las Vegas Highway.  The building was originally a trading post.  Then it was a gun shop for a while.  Finally, it was converted into a restaurant… The Bobcat Bite won many awards and was featured in newspapers and television as the place to go for a green chile cheeseburger.

The restaurant was named for the bobcats who would come down from the nearby foothills to snack on fresh scraps of meat offered by ‘bobcat friendly’ diners.  I don’t know how I discovered Bobcat Bite.  It was featured in the Chicago Tribune, it appeared in the 2004 documentary Hamburger America, and it appeared on Food Network shows hosted by Alton Brown and Andrew Zimmer…the latter of which rated it in his top 3 hamburgers!

GQ Magazine listed Bobcat Bite’s green chile cheeseburger as one of “The 20 hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die”.  Unfortunately I didn’t take food photos back in 2006 so you’ll have just gaze on a photo I borrowed from the Internet.  This burger was indeed excellent!  Sadly, the restaurant’s owners retired in June of 2013 and the restaurant was closed.

Just a little wildlife… This is a colorful evening grosbeak, a member of the finch family.  It breeds in coniferous and mixed forest across Canada and the western mountainous areas of the USA and Mexico.  Its wintering range stretches across the northern USA to New England and Pennsylvania.  Its conservation status is listed as vulnerable… 

We’re both always open for a little more back road exploration if the time allows.  So we took a drive from Santa Fe to Las Vegas…New Mexico.  In the 1880s, this Las Vegas was the big town in New Mexico Territory.  It was bigger and richer than either Santa Fe or Albuquerque.  The town is the county seat of San Miquel County and it has a population of about 13,000. It was established in 1835 after a group of settlers received a land grant from the Mexican government.  The town soon prospered as a stop on the Santa Fe Trail.  During the Mexican-American War Stephen W. Kearny made a speech here claiming New Mexico for the USA.

The railroad arrived here in 1879 and the town boomed.  It even had an electric street railway!  However the railroad also brought murderers, robbers, thieves, gamblers, gunmen and other undesirables, turning the east side of town into a den of sin and lawlessness.  Doc Holiday, Big Nose Kate, Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp were among those who came to town.  Today, Las Vegas New Mexico has almost 1,000 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Plaza Hotel (pictured above) opened in 1882 as the “Belle of the Southwest”.  It overlooks the Old Town Plaza Park.  Then and now, everyone stayed here, from Doc Holiday to Tommy Lee Jones.  The hotel has been featured in movies and TV from Tom Mix silent pictures to Longmire, Easy Rider and No Country for Old Men.  The adjacent building, constructed in 1891 was added to the Plaza Hotel in 2006.

To learn about the Plaza Hotel, its rooms, dining opportunities and more, just go to http://www.plazahotellvnm.com/.

However, I’d already booked a place for us to stay near Santa Fe.  For once I acceded to Laurie’s requests.  She loves Bed and Breakfast establishments…me not so much.  This is the courtyard of the Bobcat Inn Lodge.  It was built in the 1950s as a private residence.  Renovations and updates had been done in 2002 and our stay here was delightful.  Since we stayed here in 2006, additional renovations and upgrades were made in 2008, 2016 and 2017.   

Each room at the Bobcat Inn is themed with different settings that are relevant to New Mexico culture.  There are only 5 guest rooms, each with in-suite bathrooms.  Each room has a nice view of the mountains.  As you can see, our room had this great southwestern style fireplace as a focal point…

The Bobcat Inn is situated on 10 acres.  As you can see the views were spectacular and I’m sure they still are.  The patio with its southwestern plantings amplified the feeling for us…  Although the Inn is only 12 minutes from historic Santa Fe Plaza, this peaceful oasis provides amazing views of the nearby Sangre de Cristo and Ortiz Mountains.

The Bobcat Inn is located at 442 Old Las Vegas Highway in Santa Fe New Mexico.  Phone: 505-988-9239.  Website: https://www.bobcatinn.com/.

Next stop…on to Taos New Mexico.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a trip down our road trip memory lane!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave